Posted on: Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Chance meeting 'blessing' for father
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Vietnam veteran Allen Hoe of Kailua came to Washington for Memorial Day to speak at the wall built for his fallen comrades, and by chance made a remarkable discovery.
Associated Press library photo • Jan. 26, 2005 Hoe told the crowd that a few hours earlier, he'd stopped by a memorial built for Vietnam nurses. He met a woman who looked at the button he was wearing that bore a picture of his son, Nainoa, and she recognized him.
"She saw this button. She says, 'I know him.' I said, 'My God, he is my son.' She said, 'I held him as he died,' " Hoe said.
Army 1st Lt. Nainoa Hoe, 27, was killed by a sniper in Mosul, Iraq, on Jan. 22 while leading his platoon.
He received his commission, earned his "jump wings," went through Ranger school and was assigned in 2004 to the 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment — a Stryker armored-vehicle unit from Fort Lewis, Wash. He had been in Iraq since October.
Allen Hoe, who was an Army combat medic in Vietnam in 1968, yesterday thanked the nurse as part of his prepared remarks. The nurse's name was not immediately available.
Volunteers have numerous stories of coincidental meetings, but the meeting between Hoe and his son's nurse is especially moving, said JoAnn Mangione, spokeswoman for Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.
"To know what happened in the last moments of their loved one's life is a blessing," she said.
He found the nurse who held his son as he died in Iraq.
Allen Hoe of Kailua, father of Army 1st Lt. Nainoa K. Hoe, 27, saluted at a memorial for his son in the main Post Chapel at Fort Lewis, Wash., earlier this year. The younger Hoe was killed Jan. 22 by a sniper as he led a foot patrol in Mosul, Iraq.
He was a 1995 graduate of the Kamehameha Schools, joined the reserves and was named U.S. Army Pacific Reserve soldier of the year with the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry. He earned a master's degree from the University of Hawai'i College of Business Administration in 2003. In his last year at UH, Hoe was ROTC battalion commander. He married his wife, Emily, last June.
Nainoa K. Hoe
